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Sunday 30 March 2014

Reuben Woolley


two

no more straitjackets 

my head is overloaded
and i can’t understand what they say

it’s all tripos and trappers
that makes you the sab at high
altitude

                                   something else comes in
                        oh        various things                         the hair
                                   and fingernails                       of a dead body

bits of me have been asleep and dreaming

                        the matter suddenly becomes alive
                        and then          at death                       it becomes dead

                        a very wonderful transformation


                                   if you move
                                  
                                   the picture changes


                                   it’s easier

                                                                       if you stand still

--

(from)
the king is dead

 (iv)

the lightning exposes
the way people walk                 smelling of flesh
free birds eternally pull out more words
to inject into the skull’s dreams

                                             we
were forced into these colours
                                             the man
who cries      or runs            fails the existing spirits     who turn
to go first                             in the final procession

mother and i put out their eyes just before dawn
we waited quietly                   raking the earth
limitlessly                               fusing everyone’s plans
                                               moving
                                               was like a motion picture
so we severed the connection

you have a place to live           where
the rain brings new sights        the singer
is elsewhere                             finding it too much
to hold onto all at once

                                                he had heard
that the earth was round   and the exhibition of his shrivelled tongue
showed his guilt to the sundered worlds

                                               a frozen scream
                                               there was so much blood
                                               in the ritual song

in the sunshine crack
where the eyes and ears could live
sight died                             a raw nerve
was necessary in the shattered reflections
                                             don’t you see them in her window


now was the only time


in kansas jane     supposed a body to be of no importance
but then
                     the            
                                       old               
                                                            dead      
                                                                                       king
                                                                                       would get up
                     and step out of the sea
                                       and fly
                                                            with mercy
                                                                                       to the whole
                                                                                                                                                                                           world



                    



 and step out of the seal

                                             and fly

                                                                     with mercy

                                                                                       to the whole

                                                                                                                                                                                           world





                     wherever she may be found

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